Maybe I'm wrong, but this strains credibility.

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Nearly a year after the disaster, state investigators have concluded that the Sago Mine explosion that killed 12 miners was caused by a lightning bolt that ignited methane gas underground, a union official said.

The mine's owner, International Coal Group Inc., has argued since March that lightning was to blame for the Jan. 2 blast, a theory critics of the company have disputed.

The report is to be released Monday, but United Mine Workers officials who helped in the investigation have been briefed on it, Dennis O'Dell, the union's health and safety director, said Wednesday.

The chief of the state's mine safety agency did not immediately return a call for comment."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Mine_Explosion_Sago_Report.html

Electricity has to have some kind of conductor to travel. In general, it's not going to travel through the ground. How far was the methane gas underground? Was there anything that could have conducted the surge to the underground methane? Or is this just another crooked-campaign-contribution-coverup?

Does anyone know about this kind of thing? Is this plausible?

I dont remember the details, but I remember reading that a lot of people in the Govt responsible for mining safety had ties were former lobbyists for the mining industry.

was sub-par so that is mainly why they didn't survive.

...it ignores the very CONCEPT of "credibility" altogether.

They could LITERALLY make a more believable case for it being caused
by angry Leprechauns.

(Unlike lightning, we don't have centuries of scientific data to show that
angry Leprechauns don't work that way, see?)

have found weird formations where the strike has melted the sand in the soil and fused it into bizarre shapes of a glasslike substance. Such structures also contain natural buckyballs, a spherical form of carbon recently discovered.

Such structures are found within 1-3 feet of the surface, meaning the energy of the strike is likely dissipated at about that depth.

So just for that, this stupid rationalization for piss poor mine safety, inadequate rescue equipment, non working gas detection, and a total disregard for the safety of people who do some of the dirtiest and most dangerous work in the country is debunked right then and there.

If conditions are right, lightning can melt the ground. Lightning can strike where a coal seam breaks the surface of the ground, with the fire then spreading below. Often the fires do not just burn themselves out because they are slowly consuming a coal seam.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GDX/is_3_74/ai_58915105